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Ch 8: Developments

  After threading copper wire through the opening of the bags, creating a rigid but malleable rim for the bags, I realized shaped iron rings would work better. They would be less likely to get bent or misshapen while moving around.

  This was just a prototype, though. I needed a proof of concept first, before I made more advanced steps on the project. What I was trying to do was create bags with the mouths always held open for easy access to reach inside.

  My first major accessories were two large bags, one on either side of my hips. Those I would use to pull weapons out of. Then I sewed very small bags to the outside of the arms and waist of my leather armor.

  These I would use to store items like ammo and potions that I would have immediate and easy access to. These were infinity bags, so volume was non existent. They were basically small portals strapped to my body that I could reach into and always grab what I needed.

  The enchantment on the bags was coded so that nothing could accidentally fall out of the bags. To get things out of the bag, you had to put your hand or fingers in and think of what you wanted. Or you could reach in and the bag would send an inventory list of its contents into your mind.

  Once I proved that worked, I set about smithing iron rings for the bag openings. Upon completing that task and integrating them with the bags, I started on the most important part. Making the weapons and ammo.

  Before I started on that, I finished brewing the poison from the mushrooms and poured that into different sized beakers and test tubes to see which size was most convenient for coating weapons and ammo. I figured the test tubes were better for melee weapons, and beakers were better for ammo.

  The test tubes you'd just pour the small amount of viscous liquid onto the weapons and, with a rag, wipe it over the weapon to create a nice even coat. Then for the ammo, I would pour a small amount into a beaker, drop the bolts point down into the beaker to coat the tips and then place them on a rag to dry.

  After clearing the poison out of the main alchemy set, I went about processing the oil slimes. The things I needed most were gasoline, propane, butane, rubber, and plastic polymers. With my expert proficiency in alchemy, I had just enough knowledge to process the oil slimes into various products.

  Each product required different processes and containment methods. Unfortunately, I didn't have anything to contain and pressurize gas yet, so I'd have to skip that for now. What I focused on making was gasoline, and rubber, and plastic polymer solutions.

  While those were processing in a few different alchemical systems I had set up, I started on making my weapons and ammo. Using the tinkering tools and materials I got from the Adventurer's Guild, I began constructing hand cross bows.

  I figured hand crossbows were the closest thing I would get to single shot flintlock pistols for a while and I had always been entranced by the concept of pirates who carried many loaded flintlock pistols on their person, so they could fire all of them in rapid succession during a fight.

  I wanted to do the same thing except with hand crossbows. I planned to get to flintlock pistols and eventually modern pistols and even bigger guns, but that was several level ups off. I assumed I would have to reach above a master level proficiency in blacksmithing to manufacture workable gun parts.

  I briefly wondered if I could multiclass with the system. Maybe I took take some levels in gunslinger once I had invented guns. I'm sure I could figure it out by going through the system instructions further.

  The instruction book was hundreds of pages long, though, and I really didn't have the time to fiddle around with it when it wasn't a pressing issue.

  While in the middle of putting together my dozenth crossbow, I leveled up to 4. I got the same rewards as the previous two times. A stat point, a crafting proficiency level, and a new ability.

  As per usual, I put the stat point into intelligence, bringing me up to 9 and my maximum mana points to 180. I noticed that the higher my intelligence got, not only did my max mana go up, but my mana recovery rate increased as well. I didn't have to rely on mana potions as much as before for my enchanting.

  The crafting proficiency I chose to level up was tinkering. I figured it would allow me to improve on the design of the crossbows, turning them from single-fire to semi-automatic. That would be a massive help in terms of practicality.

  I also wanted more proficiency in artifice to create self-aiming crossbows, but that wouldn't be too useful unless I could design drum magazines for the crossbows.

  What use would self aiming crossbows sitting on my shoulders like turrets be, if I had to take them off and reload them every one to five times they fired? Now if I could design double feed drum magazines so each shoulder turret had between 60 and 120 shots, then they'd be useful. But I would need tinkering expertise to make the drums.

  Every crafting discipline seemed to complement, but also rely on, each other in a way that was both satisfying and frustrating, especially when trying to level up.

  When my tinkering proficiency went up, the idea on how to create crossbow magazines started formulating. I knew it was possible, since I had seen them in shows and movies. Not that those were necessarily the best ways to figure out if something existed or not.

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  After another hour of messing around with my design and test abilities, I had worked out how the magazines would work, but I still needed to be able to blacksmith some of the parts. I tried to blacksmith the magazines, but they were janky and a little misshapen, so sometimes the crossbow would jam.

  All I had to do was slap the crossbow to get it to unjam, but it wasn't perfect. It looked like I would need expert proficiency in blacksmithing to create good versions of the magazines, but functional was better than nothing.

  The new ability I got—which I had started to think of as spells—was called "Assembly." As long as you had all the individual parts of an invention manufactured, you could use mana to skip the tedious process of putting them together by hand. The spell would do it for you.

  I used that to assemble several crossbows, and then I spent the rest of my time hammering out imperfect magazines for them. Each magazine only held 5 bolts, but it was a good start.

  On top of having several fully loaded crossbows in the bags on my hips, I also placed many loaded magazines in ringed bags on my waist. The extra crossbows were for when I didn't have time to reload, and the magazines were for when I did.

  It really was too bad the poison wouldn't work on the undead. That would make the dungeon far easier, but at least it would work on the rats. By the time I was done with the crossbows and the bolts, my solution for the undead was complete.

  The gasoline had finished processing. I poured all of it into test tubes, that I glued and wrapped enchanted pieces of paper around. The paper enchantments were designed to ignite when they physically came in contact with the gasoline.

  And thus I had designed my own tiny Molotov cocktails. I would throw the test tubes at my enemies, they would break against my enemy's body or on the ground and catch on fire.

  What I wanted to do was enchant the crossbow bolts to catch fire after I fired them, but enchanting required the physical component of circles and symbols to be drawn on and carved into the objects you were enchanting.

  I had started to devise a design where I would clamp each bolt in a metal vice that would imprint an enchantment into the metal, but that was far too complicated for what I had the ability to do right now.

  With 150 Molotov cocktails and 200 crossbow bolts, only half of which were in magazines, being carried in various bags on my person, I was ready to disembark to the Adventurer's Guild.

  Too bad it was two in the morning. Valda had long since fallen asleep on the floor, which couldn't have been comfortable. I woke her up and walked her back home, where we were able to at least get six hours of sleep before waking, and feeding my siblings, and sending them off to the church school.

  It wasn't a catholic church or a christian church. They didn't have those here. Instead, they were the United Church of the Nine Gods. They were in charge of educating the youth in most areas since the government either wasn't sophisticated enough to hire teachers or didn't care.

  While the church didn't run the government—that was King Todd's job—they did have the support of the government and of the people. As such, they were well funded and ran a lot of essential services that would normally be run by a government agency in my old world. Like schools, libraries, and charities which functioned as welfare for the poor and needy.

  All other governmental services were provided and funded by King Todd, like healthcare, record keeping like birth certificates and citizenship, dispute resolution, and infrastructure maintenance for the big stuff. Local officials represented King Todd and handled local issues. Normal government hierarchy stuff.

  I didn't know much about King Todd, but everyone seemed to like him, which was a change from my world. Everything I'd ever heard about monarchies in my world was bad, but then again, that could have just been historians' own opinions coloring the text.

  Once Brent and Delia were off to school, Valda and I headed back to the Adventurer's Guild for me to get my license.

  I brushed past the counter lady, and Valda stayed behind to explain why we were back. I walked out the back of the building and looked at Glint, who was practicing his swordsmanship against a poor defenseless test dummy.

  "Hey," I said. "I'm ready for my test."

  He looked at my leather armor, and the rings filled with empty blackness.

  "You look ready for something," he said.

  "Point me at my target," I said.

  He backed away from the test dummy and gestured at it.

  "Very well," I said.

  I pulled out a gasoline tube and chucked it at the dummy. It shattered and the dummy immediately caught on fire. Then I pulled a crossbow from one of the bags on my hips, aimed and fired five shots in rapid succession, all hitting the target.

  It wasn't too hard. I was only standing about fifteen feet away. Just point and shoot.

  "How's that?" I asked. "Do I pass?"

  "Whoa! How did you conjure fire like that?" he said. "And that crossbow is cool! How did you make it one handed?"

  "Crafting, my friend," I said. "My class is a master of crafting."

  "Nice," he said. "I'm frankly a little jealous now. What level are you?"

  "Four," I said.

  "Wow," he said. "That's impressive for level 4. I wonder what you'll be able to make at level 20."

  "Oh, you don't even want to know," I said.

  Images of fire and screams briefly passed through my mind. I wouldn't hurt anyone innocent of course, but murderers and bandits, I didn't mind harming a little bit. Especially those guys who had broken into my home.

  "Harold, tell your mom he passed," Glint said.

  Harold, who had wandered out while Glint and I were talking, said, "Ok." He walked back inside.

  Valda came outside.

  "Did you?" she asked.

  "I passed," I said.

  She ran over and hugged me. I hugged her back, knowing my day was far from over.

  Name: Gwen

  Class: Maker

  Level: 4

  Stats:

  Strength: 5

  Dexterity: 4

  Constitution: 3

  Wisdom: 4

  Intelligence: 9

  Charisma: 2

  Resources:

  HP: 75 hit points

  MP: 180 mana points

  Stamina: 75 stamina points

  Proficiencies:

  Bartering: Apprentice (3)

  Appraisal: Apprentice (3)

  Repair: Apprentice (3)

  Alchemy: Expert (5)

  Blacksmithing: Journeyman (4)

  Enchanting: Apprentice (3)

  Tinkering: Apprentice (3)

  Artifice: Apprentice (3)

  (And More)(Far too many to fully list)(Will come up in the story as they become relevant)

  Abilities/Spells:

  Analyze: Ability to analyse people, objects, and creatures, and learn information about them, such as identification, classification, level, abilities, health, etc.

  Design: Create 3 and 2 dimensional designs, plans, and schematics in your mind and holographically in front of your eyes. Can only be seen by the user.

  Test: Ability to test designs, schematics, and plans to see if they function.

  Assemble: Ability to automatically put together crafting products if all the individual parts are already made.

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